


Sessions

by ChrisBranNorling



Series: Guild Wars 2 Stories [22]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Cisgender Character, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-10-30 10:18:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10874727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrisBranNorling/pseuds/ChrisBranNorling
Summary: Rancalagen tries to right his life, somewhat.1330 AE





	1. Chapter 1

“First off, Rancalagen, tell me why you’re here.” Rina Thompson crosses her legs at the knee, folding her hands in her lap.

Rancalagen makes a vague motion to his bald and scarred head. “Aren’t’cha supposed ta figure tha’ ou’?”

“The only things within my realm of capability are helping you cope with the trauma you’ve experienced, and working with you to move your life passed it.” She moves to readjust her thin glasses. “But that is not something I can do unless you are willing to put forth your best effort.” Brown eyes shades darker than his own look down on Rancalagen, but he hardly feels belittled. “I find that the first step is for you to verbalise what you want out of this, or out of me.”

What did he want. Maybe the ability to admit what he wanted? But no, that was on him. Rancalagen was the one who had to face what he locked away, whether it was from three, or nine years ago. Opening that door he had long welded shut, to be pretty about it, but it was more like a festering corpse in the back of his mind that he’d have to smell again.

As much as he felt the trepidation, he couldn’t live as he had anymore, he knew that. Not when there was someone depending on him to come back.

Rancalagen takes a deep breath, and different shades of eyes meet. “I wanna stop runnin’.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself.” Rina smiles, her well-proportioned face crinkling a bit.

Rancalagen snorts.

“Then maybe tell me about your life. What do you feel played a hand in making you the you that sits in there chair opposite of me?”

“Born. Splorge. Me’ Cirruel. Became m’sister. Dynamics. Simmot died. Krewe ‘ceptance. Failure. Travelled. Found th’Vigil. Me’ Drephan.” Taking a breath, Rancalagen pauses. It’s been five years, and even still the rush of memories and the condensed smell of a rotting land still cling to his senses. “Shi’n Orr n’Drephan died. Discharge n’wen’ ta Rata Sum. Maguuma campaign started, s’I reinlisted. Th’crash. Me’ Drephan again.” He focuses on Rina, trying to parse how he’ll phrase the next part. She writes on parchment swiftly. “Rata Novus. Go’ Eltaam. ‘plied for Vigil Special Reserve, ‘n accepted. Go’ a place n’started freelancin’.”

The scratching of Rina’s quill stops a few moments after Rancalagen does.

“Do you feel that your struggles have been worth it? Do you feel happy or comfortable enough with your position right now to not fully regret what’s happened?”

He shrugs, because regret isn’t something he really feels. What’s there to regret in something that can’t ever be fixed? He doesn’t even know if he’s happy. Things’re not bad for the most part now sure, but he’s never wanted to smile those wide ones that Drephan and Cirruel always have on their faces.

“S’not bad, ri’now.” Is what Rancalagen settles for, clamping down on the different lines of thought going through his head.


	3. Chapter 3

“Is it the best thing for you to continue to stay with the Vigil?”

Rancalagen ceases to fiddle with the edge of his tunic and stares at Rina Thompson, brow pinching.

Being honest with himself, he’d never considered that an option. Wouldn’t it be running away again? He owed it to … them to stay.

“Is it running away, Rancalagen, to understand that something is outside your current realm of capability?” Rina shifts in her seat, leaning a little closer to Rancalagen. “To retreat in order not to damage yourself further?”

“S’wha’ I did th’firs’ time.”

“Maybe it was,” she settles back, “but didn’t you go back before you were ready?”

Probably, definitely.

“What will you do when another campaign starts, and you’ll be expected to go help?”

His shoulders tense.

“There’s a person dependant on you who you need to consider when making your decisions.” Her hand gestures in the space between them at nothing. “You have responsibilities that you should not walk away from.”  
Not wrong, of course. There’s no one he could leave Eltaam with. Cirruel had already refused him. Drephan would be going with him. Lamnon was out as well, even if they would be staying in Lion’s Arch, they were not very equipped for persistant child care.

Did he have to give up the one solid part of this person he had become? Leave the Vigil and Pact? Logically, it is a yes. Leaving Eltaam alone again was not a choice he would willingly make, at least, so soon.

The reality is that the next big campaign is coming up, this year, next year, it is going to happen soon enough that Rancalagen has to make a decision within the next few months.

He passes a hand over his face, bare fingers feeling the dips of the scar tissue carved into his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never said Rina was a particularly good therapist, but she is one that Rancalagen needs.


	4. Chapter 4

“I’ve heard some interesting things about Orr as of late.” Rina crosses her legs. She’s still tentative about leading her and Rancalagen’s session with the news, but the asura needs a little more prodding than her usual patients.

Pale blue fingers scratch over the depressions of scars over Rancalagen’s face, and his eyes flit away from Rina. How can she find that shit hole insteresting.

“The efforts of the late Marshall Trahearne have finally borne fruit.” She lifts up the latest edition of the newspaper, the one Rancalagen had crumpled up immediately upon glimpsing the headlines this morning. “It is to my understanding that you have not gone back since you left those few years ago.”

A pitched noise pierces his ears. Rina grows faint, hazy. Her jaw starts to sag, flesh rotting slipping to the ground around her. Corruption fills Rancalagen’s nose, clinging. He averts his eyes again, tensing in an effort to not lash out, not again.

“Correct.”

“You’ve been making progress in many aspects of your life since I met you.” She mentally ticks some down. Opening up about himself, in a way. Reported use of a firearm without negative effects. Accepting the responsibilities of fatherhood. “But are you willing to face the source of your fears and return to Orr?”

“No.” Such a simple answer to a needlessly complicated question. He chances looking at Rina again, finding her normal as ever.

“Even when the reason you were there in the first place is finally being erased?” She places the newspaper down on the table next to her.

“Was there ta kill a dragon.”

“Then is that where your feelings about this are stemming from? Do you feel unfulfilled by not having taken part in the final battle against Zhaitan? Guilty?”

His claws dig into the skin of his palm. “No.” Rancalagen knows his problem, and in this one thing, he’s not sure he wants to get better. He survived where nearly everyone else in his squad had died. If he doesn’t remember, they’ll just turn into names on a plaque.

Though, he’s suddenly reminded of one evening during the trek to Rata Sum from the jungle. He had been twitching at the nearby sounds of battle, Eltaam nestled between his legs, and Drephan had pulled him close, thin fingers on his leg. They’d said ‘Remembering doesn’t have to hurt like that’ and left it at that.

Rancalagen shifts, thinking about how little what they’d both experienced seems to effect Drephan even now. But that doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten about it. They just don’t … see it the same way he does. How could he ever look back and not feel culpable?


End file.
